West pummelling the East
by James Mirtle on Dec 14, 2009 3:08 PM CST
in Statistics
96 comments
There's a lot of excitement here in Toronto these days over the fact the Leafs are "just four points" from eighth place heading into tonight's game against the Senators. Problem being, if you look closely, that the eighth-place team is on pace for all of 82 points this season.
Here's my story on that theme today, along with some quotes from a few Leafs and Danny Alfredsson.
One key factor in why the bottom half of the Eastern Conference is so poor is the fact the Western Conference has been beating the tar out of the East all year. The West has a 72-37-15 record in interconference play, which is as lopsided as I've ever seen it. (The chart above is the average point totals for teams divided by conference and the average point totals for non-playoff teams divided by conference.)
The season is nearly 40 per cent over, too, so we're not dealing with too small of a sample size.
Is the West really this much better than the East? Or is the East just weak beyond the top teams?
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Is the West really this much better than the East? Or is the East just weak beyond the top teams?
Yes
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 14, 2009 3:19 PM CST reply actions
About all that needs to be said, eh?
The top one or two teams in the East can compare to the West, but overall, the East is a very weak conference.
Yes
Wash & NJ would be ok in the west, probably in the 4-6 range The Pens maybe Malkin not gone down. those are the only three I could see in the playoff mix had they played in the West. Maybe Buffalo on the strength of Miller’s play.
On the flip side, Minnesota and Anaheim would be playoff teams in the East.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 14, 2009 3:44 PM CST up reply actions
Yeah, the Sabres wouldn’t make it in the West, IMO.
Despite their early success, they have historically struggled against the “Western style” of play. The Calgary game they were hanging by the seat of their pants, and Chicago could have hung a crooked number on them early had they cashed in PP chances.
Washington in the 4-6 range? I guess we will get a small glimpse tonight if there could be any truth to that claim.
by Moonage Daydream on Dec 15, 2009 7:34 AM CST up reply actions
That’s not exactly the biggest insult in the world. All I’m pretty much saying is that Washington would have lost 1 game against West opponents that they won against East opponents. That would put them in 4th in the west.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 15, 2009 8:18 AM CST up reply actions
remember, if Washington was playing in the West, they would be taking away points from other West teams by beating them, too.
I think last night showed that Washington is among the elite of the league – East and West.
by Moonage Daydream on Dec 16, 2009 6:26 AM CST up reply actions
I think you’re getting into quite the paradox here…
I said I thought Washington would be about 4th in the west… that would still qualify for elite.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 16, 2009 9:16 AM CST up reply actions
Guess that makes the Sabres a top team? :)
Pounded Detroit, beat Chicago without Miller, and beat Calgary and Nashville. Still haven’t lost to the West yet…
Buffalo is srs bsns this season.
Mile High Hockey: Hoping for the best, expecting the worst, hating the Wings.
The Eastern Conference teams with the best records against the West are:
Buffalo: 6-0-0
Washington: 3-1-1
Boston: 5-4-0
Atlanta: 5-4-0
Florida: 5-3-2
Pittsburgh: 5-4-1
Given how unimpressive even most of those records are, it’s definitely pretty ugly.
Still
The East will win 7-9 of the voted on awards this offseason.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 14, 2009 4:57 PM CST up reply actions
Are you suggesting that there is some sort of bias (gasp!)
Or that individual players on poor teams could possibly be more relied upon than those on good teams with better all-around depth?
Last season's "voted-on" awards results:
Western Conference: 8
Eastern Conference: 6
How do you figure that
When I counted it was like 8-1 East… I’ll dig the post out of my archives.
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by Jibblescribbits on Dec 14, 2009 7:24 PM CST up reply actions
Remember, I count Detroit in the East, for the East coast bias, because it plays most in the Eastern time zone, and as such it’s the only Western Conference team any of the writers bother watching
For the record since the lockout the West is 4 – 24 in awards (That’s including Joe Thronton’s Hart as a full 1, which was 1/3 in Boston) .
Here’s what they have won: Thornton: Hart
Kipursoff: Vezina
Kane: Calder
Vigneault: Adams.
That’s it.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 14, 2009 7:30 PM CST up reply actions
So you count Detroit and Columbus as Eastern?
And how does that affect the entire focus of this article?
Well the whole point behind East coast bias, is that writers ignore people outside the Eastern Time zone, right?
But go ahead and throw Mason in for the Calder, because it’s not like a lot of writers really pay attention to Columbus as well. 5-23 still isn’t a very good average.
Yes I realize that Detroit was the dominant Western Conference team during that time, so that they will have won some of the awards that may have gone to other WC athletes (Datsyuk, Lidstrom accounting for the majority of those). I don’t expect 50/50 here for that reason.
But there have been a ton of other good Western Conference players that were just as award worthy as some of the Eastern Conference/Time zone, or at least the margin between winner and 2nd is minimal at best, yet the award almost always goes to the guy who plays in the east.
But the point is that there’s a large Eastern Time zone bias, and that Detroit is the only West team anyone from the East bothers watching.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 14, 2009 8:22 PM CST up reply actions
I don't deny there is a bias
I simply don’t think it is as strong as you might claim. Responsible writers, such as James, do not ignore the West. Surely some writers might see less Pacific Time Zone games live, but aren’t you being a little unreasonable (and condescending) to suggest that old timers can’t stay up late enough to watch the Central Time Zone games? Using your logic, wouldn’t the young writers in the West have trouble waking up early enough to watch NBC’s East Coast games, after partying all night?
I don’t get to vote, but I assure you that I watch more Flames/Oilers/Canucks/Avs games than any of the Southeast or even Atlantic Division matchups. If you’re complaint stems from Toronto’s large voting bloc, I would argue that many of those writers also see more Northeast Division games.
Either way, just as California or Illinois get many more electoral votes than Arizona, are you suggesting that Ovechkin’s Hart (or Obama’s presidency) is illegitimate because of something as unfair as actual population distribution?
I will agree that many Western Conference players who finish 9th in voting probably should have finished 8th or 7th, but to suggest that the winners of the awards were the wrong choices seems more a product of your West Coast bias, than anything rooted in reality.
Last year saw voters pick 8 Western Conference players (Datsyuk, Datsyuk, Mason and Nash included) . Compare that to the five players voted in from the East (Ovie for Hart, Ovie for Pearson, TimThom for Vezina, Chara for Norris, Malkin for Conn Smythe). Plus Julien for the Adams, makes 6 voted in from the East.
Who among those six winners, in your opinion, were the wrong choices?
Remembering that TimThom was voted the winner by 30 GMs, evenly spread between the Conferences, are you saying that Holland and Howson see the Bruins more often than their Conference rivals?
Or that writers in attendance at the Joe voted for Malkin due to their East coast bias?
Or that the 700+ members of the P.A. voted for Ovie, despite exactly half of them playing for Western teams?
Or that Julien was voted in by the Broadcasters Association, because Altitude and other Western broadcasters cannot have their voices heard? (If you are, I’ll grant you some leeway here)
You have a point that more PHWA members are based in the East, but that only accounts (in small part) for Ovie’s Hart and Chara’s Norris. I highly doubt that you are arguing the legitimacy of the MVP, so what your argument boils down to, in real terms, is that writers may have mistakenly picked Chara over the Western candidates.
Given your well-known disdain for Phaneuf, and the fact that you lump Lidstrom into the East anyway, who was your pick for last year’s Norris?
“The East will win 7-9 of the voted on awards this offseason”
Maybe they will improve to 7 or 8 or 9, but if the bias that you cite is so prevalent, then why did they only win six last year? Including Detroit and Columbus in your analysis not only has little relevance to this article, but fails to accept that your league contains 17 teams to 13, and thereby should see more awards given to the larger Conference.
Where are you getting your numbers from? There were 7 to 8 voted on awards last year (that pertain to on-ice performance? (depending on whether you count the Pearson, I am usually citing media bias, so I don’t count it. I should probably drop the Vezina too, but I think the GMs are influenced greatly by the media. I digress):
- Hart
- Vezina
- Adams
- Selke
- Calder
- Lady Byng
- Norris.
The Winners were: Ovechkin, Thomas, Julien, Datsyuk, Mason, Datsyuk, Lidstrom. That’s a big 0-7 for the Central, Mountain, Pacific. 8-6? What are you talking about? Are you counting stuff like the Clancy, NHL fan fav, NHL Foundation Award, and Messier award? Not that those aren’t worthy awards, and extremely honorable, but the whole point is that Eastern time zone based readers don’t watch western conference games outside of Wings games. I wouldn’t expect that to influence stuff like the NHL Foundation or King Clancy award. I mean awards for on-ice performance, i.e. games people actually have to watch.
I said, in the post and recently, that Eastern time zone teams should win more, for the exact reason you mentioned, 13 teams to 17. Here’s exactly where I prefaced that the Eastern time zones should win more:
There are some legitimate reasons for this discrepancy. The best 4 players in the world, and certainly 4 of the best 6, all play for teams on the right coast (Malkin, Crosby, Ovechkin, Zetterberg), so the FST teams (forgotten standard time) are unlikely to win that award. Niklas Lidstrom is nearly a lock for the Norris almost every single year, so there’s another award the FST teams won’t be winning. but the other 5 trophies should really be toss-ups nearly every single year.
Les Ailes de Rouge have overall been the best team in the Western Conference, and the league, since the lockout so those few writers who actually care about western conference teams have legitimate reasons to vote for them.
Also there are 17 teams based in the Eastern Time zone compared to 13 based in the Central, Pacific, and Mountain.
This year both Joe Mauer and Albert Pujols deserved the MVP, and Lincecum and Greinke deserved the Cy young. Saying I think Western players should be considered more isn’t a knock on the players that won (Even though I think Kesler is a better defensive forward than Datsyuk).
The point isn’t who deserved it more or who didn’t. The point is that, since the lockout, if a player plays in a time zone east of the Eastern time zone (or south of the MAson-Dixon line for that matter) he has to be significantly better to win the award,
Take, though, for example the Lady Byng. Is there really any reason to award that to the same player every year? Is Datsyuk so dominant at gentalmanliness that he’s a 3-time reigning champion?
For the record I think Ovechkin deserved the Hart, The Norris was a toss-up, but I’d have given it to Lidstrom again, though no shame in Chara, The Adams to McLellan or Quenneville, The Vezina to Thomas, The Lady Byng to Marleau, Calder to Mason, Selke to Mikko Koivu.
And I didn’t mean go 7 and 9… I meant they will win all 7 or nine, as I was writing off the cuff and couldn’t remember how many major voted on awards were awarded.
I highly doubt that you are arguing the legitimacy of the MVP, so what your argument boils down to, in real terms, is that writers may have mistakenly picked Chara over the Western candidates.
This isn’t what I’m arguing at all. I’m arguing that Western conference players (unless they play for Detroit) have to be head and shoulders above their eastern counterparts to win an award, and that if it’s close (as it was on several awards last season) it will almost always go to the guy in the east.
Either way, just as California or Illinois get many more electoral votes than Arizona, are you suggesting that Ovechkin’s Hart (or Obama’s presidency) is illegitimate because of something as unfair as actual population distribution?
This is a ridiculous argument of apples and oranges. The Presidency is a popularity contest, literally. The Hart’s supposed to be the best player in hockey, and the writers are supposed to vote for him because they watch the most games. My point is that writers, in general, watch a lot more Eastern Conference (+Wings) so tend to vote that way since they are more familiar with those players.
And you’re right, responsible voters, such as James, don’t ignore the west. But James puts a lot more thought into this than others. too (as proven by his blog posts on the subject last season).
Again, I’m not arguing against any of the Eastern Conference winners last season or any other season… just saying that it’s pretty obvious that the deck is stacked heavily against anyone from the forgotten time zones winning.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 14, 2009 11:02 PM CST up reply actions
For the record, the Byng is pretty well meaningless and should be stricken from this conversation!
Blogging on hockey at fromtherink.com
by James Mirtle on Dec 14, 2009 11:14 PM CST up reply actions
Eh
I think it’s a nice honor for players that recognizes sportsmanship. That’s why it’s baffling that any player wins more than once.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 14, 2009 11:27 PM CST up reply actions
Marleau prolly should have won
And you like Kelser where I liked Richards.
Can we get along, now?
And he would make a fine St. Louis nominee
But seeing as how I watch about as many Blues games as Detroit games, I wouldn’t know.
Kesler, on the other hand, is a guy that every Canadian hockey fan (writers in Toronto included), sees every Saturday night.
At least those of us who can stay up until midnight (which may or may not be as many as Californians who can wake up for the NBC 9 AM games on a Sunday morning).
Just because you dont know him
Doesnt me hes not the best.
According to Mirtles article about best defensive forwards hes top 3, his linemate Crombeen is first but all blues fans know Jay is superior. The blues strategy involves constantly throwing our shutdown line out against the opposing top line, no exceptions. He plays PK and is about 30seconds short of having the most TOI for our forwards. The blues are fourth in the west for goals against and hes a major reason why. He doesn’t get any press coverage but thats sort of the debate now isnt it? Yeah he will never win any awards for being a shutdown man in St. Louis because theres no recognition for defensive forwards to begin with and very little national press coverage of the team but that shouldn’t really matter because hes the best at what he does, just not the most popular.
Just because I don't know him
Doesn’t mean squat. You are spot on, there.
But to the voters who do matter, you certainly have a valid point (a point which I recently spent countless inches debating).
While I do not believe that it is possible for the wrong guy to win the Hart, Vezina, Norris, Adams or Conn Smythe, Jibbles would have been wise to focus his argument on the most ambiguous award, the Selke.
You are right that defensive forwards get almost no recognition and that a team like the Blues doesn’t get much press coverage – a surefire recipe for being vulnerable to an East Coast bias.
For McClement to have a fighting chance at this year’s award, at least these two things need to occur:
- McClement needs to keep up his early season pace in James’ mysteriously formulated rankings.
- The Blues need to replicate last year’s turnaround, when they shot from 15th-place just before the All-Star break, to 6th-place in April
Other than Brind’Amour in ‘07, I cannot recall a player from a non-playoff team winning the award, so it won’t matter if McClement and Crombeen finish 1-2 on James’ list, if the Blues don’t get out of the basement.
Call it an East Coast bias, but I’d argue that for this award, reputation goes a lot further than location. Brind’Amour didn’t win because he’s in the East. He won because he was the reigning belt-holder.
To unseat Datsyuk, McClement will need to not only beat him on paper, he’ll need to be head-and-shoulders ahead of Datsyuk, be better than Kesler and Mike Richards and Zetterberg, AND play for a winner.
I’m not at all qualified to say whether or not McClement deserves to win, but failing the above conditions, I am confident that he will not win.
Chalk it up to my East Cost bias if you want to, but the Selke is just far more subjective than the other awards. If Jibbles had stated at the top that Kesler was robbed, rather than lumping all the other major awards into the same argument, I would have rec’d his post and saved the lot of ya’ll from having to read skim through my lengthy diatribes.
Hart, Vezina, Norris, Adams or Conn Smythe, Jibbles would have been wise to focus his argument on the most ambiguous award, the Selke.
Please stop putting words in my mouth. The Selke is the most egregious example, but all of the regular seasons awards you mentioned are subject to that bias as well, in my opinion.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 15, 2009 8:24 AM CST up reply actions
When did I do that?
All I said was that you’d have been wise to say so.
Putting words in someone’s mouth implies a misquote.
I misread your last statement, and I apologize. In that comment you didn’t put words in my mouth.
But you have before:
are you saying that Holland and Howson see the Bruins more often than their Conference rivals?
Or that writers in attendance at the Joe voted for Malkin due to their East coast bias?
Or that the 700+ members of the P.A. voted for Ovie, despite exactly half of them playing for Western teams?
Or that Julien was voted in by the Broadcasters Association, because Altitude and other Western broadcasters cannot have their voices heard?
When I clearly wasn’t saying any of those things.
The New Improved Avalanche. Now with Real Coaches!
Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 15, 2009 12:44 PM CST up reply actions
C'mon, no need to apologize
We’re all friends here ;-)
Kelser? You mean Kesler?
Please allow me to adjust my pants, so that I may dance the good time dance, and lead the onlookers and innocent bystanders into a trance.
They’re both good…
Blogging on hockey at fromtherink.com
by James Mirtle on Dec 15, 2009 1:41 PM CST up reply actions
Actually, I meant Kramer
But the studio was worried about copyright liabilities, so I used Kelser for the pilot, then changed it later on.
My initial comment was pretty well meaningless
Please strike me from this stupid conversation as well.
So Jibbles thinks Kesler was robbed and that causes him to spill mad ink to prove that he is never wrong.
Fine. I’m wrong, then.
I didn’t know we were fighting.
And it wasn’t any particular award that set me off, this is a long-standing complaint. Datsyuk winning in and of itself was fine.
It’s just infuriating to know that 1/2 the league doesn’t even have a fighting chance of winning any of the awards (Atlanta, Tampa, Florida and Carolina are included in there too.). I’m not infuriated with you about it though. You’re not the one giving unequal representation.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 14, 2009 11:38 PM CST up reply actions
As I said
Nobody would deny the existance of an East Coast bias. But to suggest that 1/2 the league has no chance, when voters chose more Westerners last year, demonstrates that said bias is over-stated.
Maybe you don’t like the awards that Westerners won, but they were still voted upon by the same groups as the “major” awards. I probably watched only a half-dozen Ovie games last year, but that doesn’t stop me from knowing that he was the MVP.
So James would throw out the Lady Byng, and you would throw out the Clancy, the Foundation, the Messier and the Fan Fav. Fine. Those awards suck compared to the majors.
All I was saying, is that if a bias was so prevalent as to preclude Westerners from having a fighting chance, then why isn’t that bias apparent in all 14 “voted-on” awards (the conversation started without your later qualifications of time zones and media-only).
Why should all those East-centric voters agree that Iginla is the best leader “on and off the ice”, if they are so transfixed on Wings games (of which I watched zero, compared to a dozen Canucks games). Isn’t Lidstrom a good leader, too?
If Habs fans were able to stuff one ballot box, then why did Luongo win the Fan Fav?
Of course there is a bias. My point about Illinois having more electoral votes than Arizona and Alaska combined was simply to illustrate that what you call unfair, is what your founding fathers called Rep by Pop (-ulation, not -ularity).
Did Obama win because Illinois has so many votes? Sure, that’s part of it. But he did also win New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. Is it possible that voters chose TimThom on 22 of their 30 ballots because guys like Pierre Lacroix actually believed he was the best, and not simply because he was born in the East? He surely didn’t actually see Thomas play live very often.
Similarly, could it be possible that old Toronto farts, like Strachan or Cox, might have chosen Julien over McLellan based not upon how many times they were able to keep their eyes open past 10 PM, but upon their belief that he was the best?
If Julien’s leadership skills are restricted to his own on-ice performance, than why are Iginla’s discounted as being not related to watching live games?
I agree that writers must half-heartedly fill in their 5th and 4th choices on their ballots with some random dude, but the point is EVERY professional writer has the ability to pick the best and therefore the actual winners (not the 5th-place vote getters) should always be correct.
To say otherwise (even when calling James the exception) is rather insulting to those who have devoted their lives and livelihood to writing about the sport (compared to those who simply run a part-time, admittedly-biased, team-specific blog, for all of three years, as a hobby).
You’re changing the argument as we go. There’s a huge East Coast bias to on-ice performance. Since most writers don’t go out and view any players charity work, or very little of it anyways, there’s not nearly as much bias there as there is for on-ice. That’s all I’ve ever claimed.
And there’s nothing wrong with the Clancy, NHL Foundation etc awards, they are very honorable awards and it’s not taking anything away from them. They just aren’t subject to the same kind of bias, pretending otherwise is preposterous.
-Again the President is based on popular vote (for the most part.) The NHL Awards in theory should be based on the best players, not where the writers who vote for them are based. It’s apples and oranges. Illinois having more electoral votes than AZ or AK is not unfair, and I am in no way saying it is.
- I don’t think writers are intentionally excluding West players, that would fall into something more than bias. I think it’s impossible for even the most professional and hard-working writers to watch 2 games a night (especially since they go to the arena and interview players etc.) A large portion are based in the East, so they get to see mostly Eastern games and that biases their opinions. I am not suggesting some dastardly or diabolical conspiracy.
I think that bias (again, against on-ice performance) is a lot stronger than anyone care’s to admit.
The New Improved Avalanche. Now with Real Coaches!
Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 15, 2009 8:14 AM CST up reply actions
I'm the one changing the argument?
Not you, the guy who began with
The East will win 7-9 of the voted on awards this offseason
then proceeded to argue (in spite of the topic of this article)
I count Detroit in the East, for the East coast bias, because it plays most in the Eastern time zone
then, to discount the “voted-on” awards that didn’t support your position, you state
There were 7 to 8 voted on awards last year (that pertain to on-ice performance
then, because the Jack Adams was won by an Easterner for his “on-ice” leadership skills and the Foundation was won by Iginla for his “off-ice ?” leadership, you say that the latter is not
subject to the same kind of bias
Got it. Silly me.
If the great Jibbles knows more about who should win than the collective membership of the PHWA “cares [sic] to admit”, then who the fuck am I to question his totally relevant argument about the original Conference vs. Conference discussion (best Western team notwithstanding).
The Messier award is a joke, as Resolute alluded to below., there’s a big difference between that one and the Adams. Moreover if you can’t see the difference in voting for the Clancy, Foundation…etc award and voting for the Adams, Hart, etc then there’s no point in continuing the discussion. There’s clearly different standards for the two, some pertaining to what is actually seen on the ice and some that aren’t.
The whole point of my original comment (which you agreed with) that spurned this debate was that despite the Western Conferences dominance over the eastern conference, the East will probably still win a majority of the awards.
I’m sorry I didn’t specify that I meant awards given for “on-ice performance” but I thought that was pretty self-evident since we were talking about on-ice dominance. I was apparently wrong.
The New Improved Avalanche. Now with Real Coaches!
Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 15, 2009 12:41 PM CST up reply actions
Good to see I can bring you and Resolute together
I was worried, when he kept repeating how untalented the Avs were, that you guys would never hook up.
I have a bit of a problem with this whole theory
Because said bias doesn’t make any logical sense in today’s “modern media” age where highlight reels of every game are shown for days afterwards, and the media themselves generally do a pretty good job of writing up about players and teams across the league.
I also think this season might see a minor flux in your prediction as a result of the olympics and the players putting in a performance on that world stage. Add in the fact that they Olympics will be played in a West Coast city, but the top games will be scheduled to reach the greatest audience, and obviously the players that have the greatest impact will be likely to see a huge boost in their chances of winning major awards.
If you look at the individual awards in general, they’ve typically been dominated by single individuals for years. The Norris has been the property of Lidstrom for the majority of the past 10 years (6 times?), while the Vezina was dominated by Brodeur and Hasek in recent memory.
Aside from Chara and Niedermayer disrupting Lidstrom’s hold on the Norris, the past winners were players for St. Louis (2 years consecutively), Los Angeles, New York Rangers, Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Chicago again. That means to me out of the past 16 seasons, a Red Wings, Black Hawks, Blues, or Kings player won the award 12 times… or 75% of the time. That’s not an “eastern” bias… if you toss out the Detroit winners (I personally think the time zone justification is a bit flimsy since Detroit is playing half their games on the road and the majority of those games aren’t going to be in the Eastern Time Zone) for the sake of argument, that leaves you with 9 Norris Trophies, which were handed to western D men on 5 occasions, which is still more than half.
In the past 10 years, the Calder has gone to an Eastern player 5 times, and a Western player 5 times. None of whom played for Detroit. Don’t really see how that indicates any sort of bias.
In the cases of both the Norris AND the Calder the split has actually been more even in recent years, giving credence to the argument that the bias is LESS existent than in past seasons. It’s going away… and a lot of that probably has to do with there being MORE teams to the West as a percentage of the NHL.
4 of the past 6 Masterson Trophy winners came from Western Conference teams.
4 of the past 10 Jack Adams trophy winners came from Western Conference teams… none of which were Detroit.
9 of the past 15 Selke trophy winners played for Western Conference teams. Datsyuk, Draper, and Federov all won for Detroit, but you also have to include Lehtinen winning 3 times, and he isn’t playing in the Eastern Conference… obviously he made a dent in the minds of the voters too. Datsyuk’s winning has a lot more to do with his takeaway/giveaway ratio, plus/minus, and general play than it does the time zone he’s playing in.
As far as the Hart goes… Thornton, Forsberg, Sakic, Pronger? That’s 4 of the past 9, and Ovechkin and Crosby have taken the past 3. I have a hard time arguing with anyone thinking their individual dominance being a result of some sort of bias.
If you ignore Crosby and Ovechkin, that means 4 of the last 6 were Western based players… how is that indicating an Eastern Bias???
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."
- Sir Winston Churchill
I'm pretty sure he's talking about the Leafs.
by Steve Burtch on Dec 16, 2009 6:11 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
My main argument has been since the lockout, or more specifically the schedule change to make things more geographically centric, the bias has gotten prevalent. Pre-lockout West and East teams played more often.
As I said above I realize there’s a bit of a “small sample size” coupled with a fact that some of the best players play in the East. But even looking at vote totals and finalists from 2nd on down, and there’s a clear bias for Eastern players since 2005.
Simply (and probably redundantly put) I think the scheduling change after the lockout amplified the bias more, as Western teams stopped traveling east, and vice versa, as often. There’s no question that before the lockout the boas was small or even non-existent.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 9:07 AM CST up reply actions
The other thing to keep in mind is that the East has been higher scoring for a long while. Players who put up 7-8 more points a season due to that difference are likely to get more recognition.
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by James Mirtle on Dec 17, 2009 9:51 AM CST up reply actions
Yeah
So western players get penalized for playing against teams that play defense. I get that.
I think from a cold hard data sense the bias is probably inconclusive because of all the factors mentioned above (most of which I already noted). I think a more interesting look would be looking at overall voting totals. Sure the top 4-6 players in the world are all in the East, but the West clearly has more good players (as they have dominated the East head-to-head for quite a few years now).
Maybe it’ll be a good blog post for the week between Xmas and New Years as I have the entire week off of work, if I can even find the vote totals from those years since the lockout. But from what I’ve seen of those vote totals and from the award winners themselves leads me to believe that since the lockout there’s an East Coast bias (and really a NE coast bias) that people are underestimating. Again, there’s nothing conclusive on that.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 11:35 AM CST up reply actions
Sure the top 4-6 players in the world are all in the East, but the West clearly has more good players (as they have dominated the East head-to-head for quite a few years now).
But… it’s the top 4-6 players that win the awards, because they’re the top 4-6 players. They don’t give out awards for collectively placing 7th-50th.
Which is why it’s hard to argue the Hart over the last 4 years, (My guess is 4 of the top 6 are in the East Time zone). Crosby, Ovechkin, Malkin, Zetterberg, Iginla and Thornton are my top 6 over the last 4 years.
But it’s not as if every award is for the overall top player. Like I said, the overall voting would tell a better tale than just awards. (And I find it hard to believe stuff like Coach, Defensive forward, Goaltender and even defenseman all reside in the East as well. )
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by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 11:50 AM CST up reply actions
Let's me see if I understand you correctly,
Then I’ll go from there.
So you’re speaking to a presumed bias in the more… we’ll say, subjective trophies in the NHL case towards Eastern Conference (+Detroit) teams in the past 4 years. Keep in mind, however, that if you’re talking just about teams in the “east” (eastern timezone + some central timezone) we’re talking about more than half the league, and thus there SHOULD be more than half the trophies going there.
Presumably, if there was no bias, you’re assuming that there would be a 2-2 split over the last four years in awards between the two sides, with a bunch of trophies going 3-1 or 4-0 basically nulling each other out.
The trophies I assume you’re looking at are the Adams, Hart, Byng (to James’ chagrin), Vezina, Calder, Norris, Smythe, Masterton, Pearson, Selke and Clancy.
Are these assumptions correct?
Not quite
I’ve mentioned that the split between Eastern time zone and other time zone is 17-13, so I do not expect a 50-50 split there, (also 4 is such a small sample size that any result in just 4 is way too little evidence to even make any kind of assumption on.)
(although I think you could put ATL, TB, CAR, and FLA in the teams that are being biased against.)
The trophies I look at specifically are mentioned way above are:
- Hart
- Vezina
- Adams
- Selke
- Calder
- Lady Byng
- Norris.
The Clancy is more about Charity work, and less about on-ice performance, so any bias wouldn’t really affect it. The Masterton, in my eyes, is kind of the same thing, less about on-ice performance. The Pearson is players, and the bias is a media bias in my mind so I leave it out (but i leave in the Vezina, so you can call me a hypocrite.) The Smythe is a playoff award, and I assume journalists watch all, or most, of the playoff games so the bias isn’t there for that award,
And it’s not just about the actual winners, it’s the voting etc. For those 7 trophies, the Pacific, Central, and Mountain Time zones have won 4, compared to 24 in the East. This is despite the fact that the West has been the far superior conference over that time.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 1:10 PM CST up reply actions
And there's where you run into problems.
You’re using “West” and “East” to mean timezones in reference to bias, but conferences in reference to ability. By removing Columbus and Detroit, you’ve removed the best team in the Western Conference against teams in the Eastern Conference and a team that’s on the up-and-up, with one of the biggest stars in the game in Nash.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. In the end, you’re saying that the West plays better than the East (which, according to the graph above, is technically but debatably true – two years they’re nearly identical, one year the East leads, and two years the West leads) but the teams in the eastern time zone (which includes teams from the West that contribute heavily to this presumed lead over the East) get more votes. This is a major complication in with regards to your original thesis, and is why everyone has such a problem with this view.
I don’t think I’m comparing apples and oranges. I’m trying to say Eastern Time zone the whole time. I use East and west because it’s convenient notation, but I’m talking Eastern and Western Time zones.
And I caveated, multiple times, that Detroit has been the dominant team in the west, and this will undoubtedly also be a factor in skewering the numbers.
But it’s not just the winners that are “East”. Look at the vote-getters and nominees… and a clear bias develops, in my mind. It’s certainly not conclusive, but I think it points in that direction.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 1:44 PM CST up reply actions
Ok
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 1:58 PM CST up reply actions
Also I recommend you read my post about it from last year, as I think I lay out my points fairly well here.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 1:14 PM CST up reply actions
To be fair, the NHL went back to the pre-lockout schedule after a three-year experiment. We’re in Year Two of back to status quo.
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As far as I know, the Leadership award is decided pretty much by Messier, not a panel of writers. Besides, I doubt anyone has ever taken it seriously, especially after Sundin was named the winner for screwing over his team’s future.
As far as bias goes, nothing will ever top the Montreal writer who screwed Iginla out of the Hart in 2002 by being the only guy to leave him off the ballot entirely so he could cheat the Montreal player into the top spot.
So it is
I’d be wiling to bet that was Red Fisher. People have been questioning his integrity since the 1910’s
Just for clarification the East is 52-57-15 vs the West.
I prefer the notation (W vs. E): 57 – 37 (OT: 15 – 15)
Also
GF.west = 357; GF.east = 308, which suggests a Pythagorean Prediction of 57% for West.
a Pythagorean Prediction of 57% for West.
Translation for the sports-math impaired: it should be business as usual by the end of the year.
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Or I guess it would be more accurate to say, “the scoring doesn’t suggest that it should be terribly different from past years, so we can probably chalk the difference up to luck and expect some regression to the mean.” Right?
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Besides the Top 4 in the East the West is hands down better.
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True, but you could tell that by looking at the Eastern Conference standings alone. With 4 teams over 40 (42-46), 3 over 35 (36,37,38) and 7 with 33 or 31 (mostly 31), it’s pretty obvious that most of the conference is pretty mediocre.
What’s interesting to me about the East vs. West records is that the only non-top 8 team listed in the article is Florida. They’re also the only team in that list with a losing record in their own division.
And FWIW, having lived in the Northeast Division and now the Southeast Division, my wife and I watch plenty of Sharks games, and a good smattering of other Western Conference games, and I know a lot of Colorado fans out here, so some of us are watching.
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Call me naive, but I still think the results are fairly random in inter-conference play in pretty much every sport. I just don’t trust the sample sizes. East v. West in the NHL, American v. National in MLB, NFC v. AFC in the NFL… just not enough games to make an accurate comparison. When you throw in time zones for hockey, and how Western teams are used to playing in the Eastern time zone at least semi-regularly, and Eastern teams are so used to the same schedule every day… I think that gives the results a slight western bias. Travelling to San Jose, Vancouver, and Colorado for an Eastern team is a terrible annoyance, while it’s a fact of life for Western clubs.
And I’m not surprised that because of that, Florida is one of the Eastern teams that does well against the West.
That being said, the weakest division in the NHL is in the East: The Northeast is by far the worst division right now, and has been since Buffalo and Ottawa freefell two years ago.
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The West is just really, really good. Plus, it helps that the West doesn’t have the bad teams the East has. Even the worst West teams (Anaheim, Minnesota etc.) are still pretty good. Those West teams are gonna be battle-ready come playoff time. Or really tired.
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by Brad_Richards_Rocks on Dec 15, 2009 10:04 AM CST reply actions
So what you guys are saying is that Toronto is going to make the playoffs. Sweet.
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Why wouldn't they?
They took apart my Sens pretty handily (I know, I know … no mean feat), to move to within 2 points of 8th, or something.
I wouldn’t even count out the Canes at this point in the season.
Continued From Above.
Basically, I’m confused as to your expectations. If you concede that there are more teams in the EST zone, most of the premiere teams (being Detroit, Pittsburgh, Washington, and for last season’s voting, Columbus and Boston) are in the EST zone, and a majority of the premiere players (Crosby, Ovie, Malkin, Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Nash, Kessel; Brodeur, Thomas, Fleury and Mason in net) are all in the EST, what were your expectations for the voting?
Whoa back up. Most of the Premier teams, have been in the West. Minus Detroit the West has still iced: San Jose, Anaheim, Dallas, and to a lesser extent Vancouver, Nashville and Calgary since the lockout. And the “East” has 4 of the 6 premier players, and scores more goals.
Based on the way the season’s have played out over the last few years, I’d expect the East to dominate the “offensive” awards… Hart & Norris, and the West to dominate defensive awards: Selke & Vezina. The other three: Adams, Calder, L. Byng are kind of a toss up as far as winners go. But I recognize the best goalie, Brodeur, has played in the East, and random chance would mean the winners results could be skewed (it is a small sample size).
Where the bias is evident, in my eyes, is in nominations and vote totals. For example: one year Brodeur and Nabokov were fairly close in stats etc for the Vezina, but Brodeur dominated the voting. I’m not saying he shouldn’t have won, but based on the stats, the voting probably should have been a lot closer. Is it a travesty? of course not but that bias will, at some, point rob a guy out of an award. And there’s other examples of places where a close vote probably should have occured and it wasn’t close at all, and always in favor of the Eastern conference guy.
Also in the final results, further down the list. Western conference guys with similar stats to their eastern counterparts are almost always lower in voting totals. While no one cares who was 7th in Norris voting, those results still are indicators of bias, which does creep into the top-3 voting as well. You could have made a pretty strong case that McLellan, or even Joel Quenneville, should have been coach of the year… and you could make an equally strong case that Julien should have been. But the award went to Julien, and the ties (or even close losses) always go to the East.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 2:17 PM CST up reply actions
We should probably end this here. I really am having a hard time seeing where you’re coming from on this – part of the problem may be fighting an East time zone bias with a Western time zone bias, but I don’t know. Better to agree to disagree on this one, much as I hate that phrase.
Simply
The best players from the West, not including Detroit, are not given their due. Guys like Getzlaf, Iginla, Thornton etc, are routinely ignored. It shows come awards time.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 2:34 PM CST up reply actions
And it’s not just Getzlaf and the like… Defensive forwards like Kessler and Koivu, Defenders like Niedermeyer, Pronger, Boyle, Coaches like McLellan, Gentlemanly players like Marleau and Hejduk, Goalies like Nabokov, Luongo, etc.
I will say rookies seem to have gotten a pretty fair shake here though…
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 2:47 PM CST up reply actions
Actually, with regards to the Brodeur/Nabokov Vezina race, Nabokov was only 7 points behind Brodeur in voting, by far the closest vote that year. And, as someone who does believe that there is a bias for eastern timezone, I do think that Nabokov would have gotten those extra votes if he played for a team in that timezone. Granted, I’m a little biased, but Nabby and Joe were the only players keeping the Sharks in the playoff race until they all decided to care in March that year.
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Hmm
I thought the voting totals were far off, (but I’ll admit I said that on memory and it’s very possible I was wrong.) I agree with you though, if the voting was that close, had roles been reversed (Nabby in the East, Marty in the West) Nabby would have won.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 3:57 PM CST up reply actions
Full voting for that year here. It really was a runaway race between Brodeur and Nabokov – they had 113 and 106 points respectively, with Lundqvist in third with 13 points. In this case, I’d also chalk some of the bias to the fact that Brodeur had already won the award several times and is one of the greatest goalies that had ever played, and so is a perpetually safe choice barring injury.
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In this case, I’d also chalk some of the bias to the fact that Brodeur had already won the award several times and is one of the greatest goalies that had ever played, and so is a perpetually safe choice barring injury.
That is certainly a possibility. Although I’ve also seen bias go the other way as a sort of “that guys won too much, so we’ll give it to the new guy”.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 4:06 PM CST up reply actions
Brodeur far and away deserved it over Nabokov, too.
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by James Mirtle on Dec 17, 2009 4:50 PM CST up reply actions
The media doesn’t vote on the Vezina anyway.
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by James Mirtle on Dec 17, 2009 4:49 PM CST up reply actions
True
It’s kind of iffy here. It depends on how much you think GMs are influenced by the media.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 4:54 PM CST up reply actions
@ Vent
Also, one minor quibble: East hasn’t won against the West since the lockout.
East vs West :
‘05-06 71-62-17
’06-‘07 68-63-19
’07-’08 67-67-16
08-09 129-113-27
W vs E
‘05-06 80-52-19
’06-‘07 82-48-20
’07-’08 83-53-14
08-09 141-103-26
Also: I’m perfectly ok with counting Columbus in the “West” even though they are in the Eastern time zone, because the complaint I have is, essentially, down to “Media bias” and it’s not like a lot of media people are paying much attention to the Jackets. Taking Detroit’s record out of this leaves:
the west at:
‘05-06 74-49-18
’06-‘07 76-45-19
’07-’08 76-51-13
08-09 129-98-25
Still dominating the East (but I’m not going through the East’s schedule individually and subtracting those out…)
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 2:05 PM CST reply actions
With regards to those stats,
Not including Detroit’s wins and Columbus’ losses in the East (assuming they cancel each other out) and ignoring OTLs, obviously, the “West” has a W% of .537 over those four years – which is above .500, but a ways from “dominating.”
53.7 vs 46.3 is considered dominating when you consider just 1 opponent vs the other. Case in point: a 54% face-off man is considered dominant. a 54-43% election is considered a landslide… etc.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 2:32 PM CST up reply actions
Are you still flogging this horse with fudged stats?
54 to 46?
Check your own numbers. At what point did the East ever come in under 50% ?
In 2007-08 you cite the East as only winning 67-67-16 (their worst showing until this year)
Your methodology is flawed (excluding Detroit from the West, without giving their numbers to the East), your conclusions are obviously pre-conceived (you’ve cited your own blogpost from last year a few times, as some kind of evidence), and your conclusions never jive with your own data (4 years of dominance, when James’ stats clearly show near-parity until this year).
You began by complaining that despite James’ data about Conf vs. Conf favouring the West, the East would win 7 to 9 awards, then proceeded to backpedal and start pulling out Detroit and Columbus, then pulling out the Southeast Division, then re-inserting the Capitals. Then finally admitting what I said 100,000 words ago – that the bias exists, but affects only the 4th or 5th place vote getters, and not the actual winners.
Why can’t you see that?
I don’t mean to single you out for misrepresenting the facts to support your pre-conceived narrative. It seems endemic to MHH, after reading Joe’s study, which concludes:
“So, the Avs have managed a sixth-best record of 19-11-6 despite playing more games than any other team”
when, in fact, the sixth most points was only achieved because they played more games than any other team. After all, a record of 19-11-6 is hardly better than the Flames’ 19-10-4 record or Buffalo’s 20-10-2 record or Phoenix’s 20-12-2 record … I could go on.
You guys in Colorado seem to always follow the same method:
Phase 1: Come up with title / thesis
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Profit from the results, no matter what the data shows
Just once, I’d like to see you admit that you were wrong. I’d pay to see it, in fact.
Well if you want to call an OT loss a loss, the east has been under .500 every single year since the lockout. I was simply using Vents 53.7 and taking it out of 100, my mistake.
You began by complaining that despite James’ data about Conf vs. Conf favouring the West, the East would win 7 to 9 awards, then proceeded to backpedal and start pulling out Detroit and Columbus, then pulling out the Southeast Division, then re-inserting the Capitals. Then finally admitting what I said 100,000 words ago – that the bias exists, but affects only the 4th or 5th place vote getters, and not the actual winners.
I’m simply done arguing with you. This is simply not an accurate representation of my position, which is still consistent with what I said in the blog post I’ve already referenced twice (which you even commented on), and which I was making an off-hand cynical comment referencing. You seem to be more more focused on “proving” me wrong than in actually having a discussion on whatever the topic at hand is. Instead of providing data and logical claims and arguments to counter my position, you seem more intent on obfuscating my position, and then take any clarification as evidence that I’m changing my position when in fact I am simply making a clarification. then using my clarification as proof that I’m contradicting myself to save face.
I’ve stated my position multiple times in this: Since the lockout there’s been a bias towards Eastern Time zone players that skews the regular season voting results for on-ice performance awards towards players from that time zone. There are reasons that the Eastern Time zone players might win those awards anyways, but there’s still an overwhelming bias, which I think goes unnoticed. That’s the position I’ve taken and have kept for at least 2 years now.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 3:39 PM CST up reply actions
For the record
I’m wrong (pop the champagne) East has had over 50% point% every year, although they were still dominated by the west.
In points percentage (without Detroit.. being consistent):
‘05-06 74-49-18 … Points : .588
’06-‘07 76-45-19… points: .611
’07-’08 76-51-13… Points% : .589
08-09 129-98-25… Points%:: .562
Total Points %: .583
East:
‘05-06 71-62-17… Points%: .53
’06-‘07 68-63-19…Points:% ….517
’07-’08 67-67-16… Points% ….500
08-09 129-113-27…Points%…526
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 3:50 PM CST up reply actions
Not quite as dominant as the 43 or 46% you pinned on the East earlier
Still, I’ll take the 52% average you cite now.
So where do I send that cheque, then?
Problem: .500 isn’t .500, and hasn’t been since 1999. .550 is the new .500, which means that .521 (the East’s average, which Jibbles forgot), is still below par. Put another way, the East has 89% the conversion rate of the Wings-less West, and other than last year (94%), it hasn’t even been close.
The East has been dominated. Period.
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That’s the position I’ve taken and have kept for at least 2 years now
Exactly my point.
You made up your mind two years ago (despite the sample size being even smaller at that time), and are sticking to it, facts be damned.
This is simply not an accurate representation of my position
I wasn’t trying to represent anything. I was recapping what you actually said, in the posts above.
You made up your mind two years ago (despite the sample size being even smaller at that time), and are sticking to it, facts be damned.
I’ve seen no facts that even come close to changing my mind, so why would I change my mind.
I wasn’t trying to represent anything. I was recapping what you actually said, in the posts above.
It was an entirely inaccurate summary of what I said above, misrepresenting clarification as “backpedalling”
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 4:02 PM CST up reply actions
You've cited the facts youself
You don’t argue that the wrong guy has ever won (Marleau’s Lady Byng travesty, not withstanding).
Only that the 5th-place vote-getters should have more votes.
And I call it backpedalling when you say:
The East will win 7-9 of the voted on awards … When I counted it was like 8-1 East … The trophies I look at specifically are [these 7] Hart, Vezina, Adams, Selke, Calder, Lady Byng, Norris … Remember, I count Detroit in the East … I think you could put ATL, TB, CAR, and FLA in the teams that are being biased against … The whole point of my original comment (which you agreed with) that spurned [sic] this debate was that despite the Western Conferences dominance over the Eastern Conference, the East [meaning time zones now] will probably still win a majority of the awards … I’m sorry I didn’t specify that I meant awards given for "on-ice performance"
Just answer me one question (you owe me that after never addressing my original “best player vs depth on best teams” question).
Why do the Caps get special treatment, compared to the other SE teams?
Is it maybe because Ovie doesn’t fit your pre-conceived narrative of us lazy Easterners who can’t stay up past 9:30, and who don’t care about the SE teams (who just happen to not have any award winners) ?
Let it go. The perceived strength of the East Coast bias seems far, FAR less pronounced than your own West Coast bias against the lazy PWHA voters who are based in Toronto. Which is no surprise, given your proclivity to pronounce your own thoughts / ideas / skills as being invariably more valid than:
- Stan Kronke
- Pierre Lacroix
- Joel Quenneville
- Tony Granato
- Tucker, Arnason, Raycroft, Svatos, etc
To say nothing of how stupid you consider countless non-Avs to be. Go ahead and remove Detroit from the equation again here, and count up the number of professionals that you, Jibbles, have ranted about being better than, or knowing more than.
Now take those who are unable to give you and your blog promotion (i.e. Wyshynski, Dater, MHH and friends), and count how many times you’ve ever admitted that they might know more about a subject.
I think you’ll find that you are no less pompous and self-righteous than A2Y, yet you go to sleep telling yourself that you are light years ahead of him, in terms of objectivity.
All right, enough is enough guys.
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by James Mirtle on Dec 17, 2009 4:50 PM CST up reply actions
No worries James
I’m done arguing with him.
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Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Dec 17, 2009 4:52 PM CST up reply actions
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